A River Runs Through It: Amazon Gets Reminded of Its Namesake as ICANN Rejects Domain Bid; ".author," ".book," Still on Block

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As Amazon vies to snag exclusive rights to use top-level domain (TLD) names including “.author,” “.book,” and “.read,” last week it was thwarted in its attempt to buy one suffix it coveted: “.amazon.”

The online retailer applied to purchase the domain name after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced plans last year to sell generic top-level domain names (website suffixes such as “.com” and “.org”) to private companies. The New York Times reports that an ICANN committee recommended against selling the river’s name to Amazon after a group of Latin American countries voiced their objections in a letter.

“In particular ‘.amazon’ is a geographic name that represents important territories of some of our countries, which have relevant communities, with their own culture and identity directly connected with the name,” the letter said. “Beyond the specifics, this should also be understood as a matter of principle.”